The following Treatise is the message or teaching of S. Francis de Sales to the Calvinists of the Chablais, reluctantly written out because they would not go to hear him preach. The Saint neither published it nor named it. We have called it “The Catholic Controversy,” partly to make our title correspond as nearly as possible with the title “Les Controverses,” given by the French editor when the work was posthumously published, chiefly because its scope is to state and justify the Catholic doctrine as against Calvin and his fellow-heretics. It is the Catholic position and the defense of Catholicism as such. At the same time it is incidentally the defense of Christianity, because his justification of Catholicism lies just in this that it alone is Christianity and his argument turns entirely on the fundamental question of the exclusive authority of the Catholic Church as the sole representative of Christianity and Christ. This is the real point at issue between the Church and the sects, and therefore he, as officer of the Church, begins by traversing the commission of those who teach against her. He shows at length, in Part I, that she alone has mission, that she alone is sent to teach, and that thus their authority is void and their teaching but the vain teaching of men.

This teaching he tests in Part II by the Rule of Faith. Assuming as common ground that the Word of God is the Rule of Faith, he shows that the so-called reformers have composed a false Scripture and that they err also in rejecting tradition or the unwritten Word of God. And then, proceeding to the central point of his case, he shows that while the Word of God is the formal Rule of Faith, is the external standard by which faith is to be measured and adjusted, there is need of a judge who may explain, apply and declare the meaning of the Word. That judge is the Holy Catholic Church. She is thus the necessary exponent of the Rule of right-believing, and each of the voices by which she utters her decision becomes also a part of the Rule of Faith, namely, her own general body, Councils, fathers and her supreme head and mouthpiece, the Pope, the successor of S. Peter and the Vicar of Christ. Miracles and harmony of doctrines may be considered the complement of the Rule of Faith. In all these matters the Saint proves conclusively that the Catholic Church alone fulfils the necessary conditions.

In Part III he comes to the doctrines of the Church in detail, but of this part there only remain to us three chapters on the Sacraments and an Essay on Purgatory.

This may suffice as to the aim and subject matter of the Treatise. Of its intrinsic merits the author’s name is sufficient guarantee, but we add more direct testimony because it is a new revelation of the Saint.

The Bull of Doctorate calls it “a complete demonstration of Catholic doctrine.” Alibrandi, in the Processus, speaks of “the incredible power of his words” and says in particular that no other writer, as far as he knows, has “so conclusively, fully, and lucidly explained the Church’s teaching on the primacy, infallible magisterium, and other prerogatives of the successors of S. Peter.” Hamon, in his Life of the Saint,^[n0001] says, “If we consider it, not as disfigured by its first editor, who made it unrecognisable in trying to perfect it, but as it left its author’s hands, we see that it is of inestimable value, that it presents the proofs of the Catholic Church with an irresistible force.” Its first editor, Léonard, says, “We are entirely of the opinion that this book deserves to be esteemed beyond all the others he has composed.” The Mother de Chaugy, superior of Annecy, in her circular letter of 1661 to the Houses of the Visitation, writes thus, “It is considered that this Treatise is calculated to produce as much fruit amongst heretics for their conversion as the Introduction to a Devout Life amongst Catholics for devotion. And their Lordships our Judges (for the cause of Canonization) say that S. Athanasius, S. Ambrose and S. Augustine have not more zealously defended the faith than our Blessed Father has done.”

Cardinal Zacchetti, in introducing the cause of Beatification, gives a further proof of its excellence in describing the effect it had on the obstinate men for whom it was composed: “When the inhabitants of the Chablais were forbidden by magisterial decree to attend his sermons or frequent his company, he began to fight with his pen, and wrote to them a letter accompanied with certain selected arguments for the Catholic faith, by which he recalled so great a multitude of wandering souls to the Church that he happily raised up and restored first Thonon and then the other parishes.”

And the power of the work lies not in its substance only but also in its manner. It is true controversy, yet unlike all other controversy. He seems to follow the same method as in his practical theology, making the difficult easy, turning the rough into smooth. What S. Thomas and the grand theologians have done for learned men, S. Francis has done for the general people. He ever seems to have little ones in his mind, to be speaking and writing for them. We see in this Treatise the leading of the same spirit which made him love to preach to children, and to nuns and to the poor country people; which made him keep in his own establishment and teach with his own lips the poor deaf-mute of whom we read in his life. It is in great measure this spirit which gives him such an affinity with our age in that sympathy with the weak and miserable, which is one of its best and noblest tendencies. And here again we have a striking proof of his genius. “It is perhaps harder,” say the Bollandists in their petition for his Doctorate (xxxv), “to write correctly on dogmatic, moral, and ascetic subjects in such a way as to be understood by the unlearned and not despised by the learned, than to compose the greater works of theology; it is a difficulty only overcome by the best men.”

We must now satisfy our readers that we offer them a faithful text of a work of such extreme value. This is the more necessary on the ground that it is an unfinished and posthumous production, and it is especially incumbent upon us, because we put forward our edition as representing in English a first edition, the first printing of the true text. Ours is veritably a new work by S. Francis brought out in this 19th century.

The original was written on fugitive separate sheets, which were copied and distributed week by week, sometimes being placarded in the streets and squares. The Saint did not consider them of sufficient importance to be mentioned in the list of his works contained in the Preface to the Love of God, but they were carefully written, and he preserved a copy more or less complete which bears marks of being revised by him later and which he speaks of to the Archbishop of Vienne (L 170) as “studies” suitable for use in a future work on “a method of converting heretics by holy preaching.”

The first we hear of a portion of these sheets is in the “Life” by his nephew, Charles Auguste de Sales, who gives a rather full and very accurate analysis of them. They are labeled in his “Table des Preuves” (63) as follows: “Fragment of the work of S. Francis de Sales, Provost of Geneva, on the Marks of the Church and the Primacy of S. Peter; written partly with his own hand when he was at Thonon for the conversion of the Chablais. We have the original on paper.” These fragments were the chief part of the article on Scripture, the article on tradition, the chief part of the article on the Pope and half that on the Church. The parts “written with his own hand” were those on Scripture and tradition.

This abstract was made before 1633 (the Saint died at the end of 1622), and exactly a quarter of a century after that date, when Charles Auguste had been bishop 14 years, he “discovered” the whole manuscript as we have it now, except a comparatively small portion which was, and is, preserved at Annecy. The MS was contained with other papers in a plain deal box which for greater security during those disturbed times had been cemented into the thick wall of an archive-chamber. Of this fact he gave the following attestation:

“We testify to all whom it may concern that on the 14th May of the present year 1658, when we were in our château of La Thuille, from which we had been absent fourteen years, and were turning over the records of our archives, we found 12 large manuscript books, in the hand of the venerable servant of God and our predecessor, Francis de Sales, in which are treated many points of theology which are in controversy between Catholic doctors and the heretics, especially concerning the authority of the Supreme Roman Pontiff and Vicar of Jesus Christ and successor of Blessed Peter. We also found three other books on the same matters, which were written by another hand except as to three pages which are in the hand of the aforesaid servant of God. All these we consigned to the Rev. Father Andrew de Chaugy, Minim, Procurator in the cause of Beatification of the servant of God.”^[n0002]

Father de Chaugy, who sent, or probably took, them to Rome, gives the following attestation. The names of witnesses will easily be recognized by those who are familiar with the Saint’s life:

“I, Brother Andrew de Chaugy, Minim, Procurator of the Religious of the Visitation for the Canonization of the venerable servant of God, M. de Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva, certify that I have procured to be witnessed that these present Manuscripts, which treat of the authority and primacy of S. Peter and of the sovereign Pontiffs his successors, are written and dictated in the hand and style of the venerable servant of God, M. Francis de Sales.

“Those who have witnessed them are M. the Marquis de Lullin, Governor of the Chablais; the Reverend Father Prior of the Carthusians of Ripaille; M. Seraphin, Canon of Geneva, aged 80 years; M. Jannus, Superior of Brens in Chablais; M. Gard, Canon of the Collegiate Church of Our Lady at Annecy; M. F. Fauvre, who was 20 years valet to the servant of God.

“All the above witnesses certify that the said writings are of the hand and composition of this great Bishop of Geneva, and they even certify that they have heard him preach part of them when he converted the countries of Gex and Chablais.”

M. de Castagnery and M. de Blancheville testify that “part was written by the Saint, and that the other part, written by the hand of his secretary, was corrected by him.”

From the many other attestations given by the chief officials, ecclesiastical and civil, of the diocese and county, we select a part of one given by the Rev. Father Louis Rofavier, Chief Secretary to the Commission of Beatification and Canonization.

“Amongst other most authentic papers there were found some cahiers in folio, written by the Saint’s own hand, and others by a foreign hand but noted and corrected by him, which proved to be one of the Treatises of Controversy composed by him during his mission to the Chablais … which Treatise was inserted in the Acts, and produced under requisition, that the court of Rome might have due regard to so excellent a work in defense of the Holy Roman Church. The requisition and production having been made it was judged fit to send the original to our Holy Father Pope Alexander VII…. I have had the honour of handling it and of inserting it in the Acts, and moreover of having a faithful copy of it made to be hereafter published.” The Marquis de Sales speaks of “two or three copies.”

The autograph, with the attestations in original, was deposited by the Pope in the archives of the Chigi family to which he belonged, and there we will leave it for the present while we follow the fortunes of the copy which had been made for publication. It was placed in the hands of Léonard of Paris, editor of the Saint’s other works, who brought it out in 1672. We have only to endorse M. Hamon’s quoted condemnation of this edition. Léonard himself says, “We have not added or diminished or changed anything in the substance of the matter, and only softened a few of the words.” But such an editor puts his own meaning on the expressions he uses. As a fact there is not a single page or half-page which does not contain serious omissions, additions and faulty alterations of matters more or less substantial. The verbal changes are to be counted by thousands; in fact the nerve is quite taken out of the expression, the terse, vigorous and personal sixteenth century language of the man of genius being buried under the trivial manner of the everyday writer employed by Léonard 80 years later. The style and wording of the original make it a monument of early French literature and the nascent powers of the French tongue.

Léonard, again, has garbled the Saint’s quotations and almost habitually given the wrong references to the Fathers. In the MS the citations are in almost every case correct as to the sense though free as to the words, and the references are most exact, though too hastily and briefly jotted down to be of much use to a careless and self-sufficient editor.

Finally, Léonard has made most serious mistakes as to order. He has quite failed to grasp the true division of Part II, simple and logical as it is. He has mingled in almost inextricable confusion the sections on the Church, the Councils, the fathers miracles, and reason,^[n0003] he has unnecessarily repeated sections on Scripture and on the indefectibility of the Church, while saying no word of a second recension of the section on the Pope which contains some important additions to the first. He has dragged out of their proper places parts on the unity of the Church, on miracles, and on the analogy of faith and thrust them respectively into the sections on the Pope, on the sanctity of the Church and on the fathers. In some places he alters the past tense into the future to suit his changes, instead of letting himself be guided back to the true order, and when he finds the Saint speaking of the last part as Part III, he drops the numeral rather than give up his mistake in making it Part IV. He says the division into three parts is the Saint’s own. So it is, but Léonard does not follow it. He makes four parts, dividing Part II into two and then goes on to blame S. Francis for making a subsection into a section. He divides the Treatise into “discours,” which is just what they were not. They had been; that is, the book was worked up from sermons, but the Saint’s very point was to turn these into ordinary writings, and he always speaks of his own divisions as chapters and articles.

Such was Léonard’s edition of 1672, and we find no further edition until that of Blaise in 1821, which is merely a reprint as far as the Saint’s own words go. It has thus almost all the faults of the first edition, with such deliberate further alterations as approved themselves to the Gallican editor. Some of the quotations are verified and references corrected, the discredit of the mistakes being attributed to the author instead of the first editor. The notes are the special feature, the special disgrace, of this edition. The editor cannot forgive S. Francis for upholding the full authority of the Pope and the true principles of the Church with regard to such matters as miracles and heresy, and his notes on the chapters treating of these subjects are full of such expressions as these: “the saintly author’s innumerable negligences”; “facts whose falsehood is generally recognised”; “this sketch of the life of S. Peter must be corrected by reference to Fleury and others”; “with what superiority Bossuet treats the question!”; “the Saint here” (speaking of the shameless Marot) “quits his usual moderation”; “there reigns such an obscurity, such confusion in his citations”; “he has quoted wrongly according to his custom”; “this miracle is no better witnessed than most”; “the relation of so many miracles shows that in his time there was little criticism”; “here he argues in a vicious circle.” Blaise’s chief indignation is reserved for the famous list of papal titles, on which he permits himself the following remark at the end of a note of three pages: “S. Francis de Sales has collected at hazard fifty titles accorded to the Apostolic See. It would have been easy to augment the number without having recourse to forged records, false decretals, and a modern doctor, and still that would not be found which is sought for with so much ardour.”

We see how low the credit of the work must have been brought by a corrupt text and such annotations as these. It was not till 1833 that the publication by Blaise, in a supplementary volume of part of the section on papal authority, began to give an idea of the way in which the Saint had been misrepresented. Blaise’s naïve commendation of this part is the condemnation of all the rest, which is neither better nor worse than the section he amended: “This piece already forms part of our collection of the Works in the ‘Controversies,’ but so disfigured that we do not hesitate to offer it here as unpublished (inédite).” What he did for a part we have done, in an English version, for the whole. Vivès in 1858 and Migne in 1861 brought out editions in which the new part was printed and which had the grace to omit the Gallican notes, but otherwise the text remained the same as in the previous editions, no serious attempt apparently being made to follow up Blaise’s discovery. Even the Abbé Baudry, who spent his life collecting, throughout France and Northern Italy, materials bearing on the life and works of S. Francis, and who made researches in the Vatican Library, only got so far as to have heard that the autograph was in the Chigi Library. It was brought forward at the Vatican Council and made an immense impression upon the fathers. But it was reserved for the present publishers and translator to have the singular honor of resuscitating this glorious work and of bringing it out in its true and full beauty.

This autograph, still preserved in the Chigi Library, is a richly bound volume of foolscap size containing 155 sheets numbered on one side, thus making 310 pages. It is in bold writing, perfectly clear and easy to read but with corrections and slips. Nearly every page has a cross at the top. The arranging and numbering of the sheets is not the Saint’s, and there is much disorder here. There are some repetitions, chiefly on the Pope and on Scripture, and slight variations, as might be expected in a work composed as this was, the Saint probably making more than one copy himself. We call it the autograph; two portions of it, however, are not autograph but, as the attestations say, written by a secretary and only noted and corrected by the Saint, namely, (1) sheets 76 to 90, containing the chief part of the section on Purgatory, and (2) one of the two recensions of the part on the Pope and about half the section on the Church, sheets 121 to 155. We mention this in order to be strictly accurate, but there is no difference to be made between the autograph and the nonautograph parts. All the sheets were together, the section on Purgatory is taken up by the Saint in the middle of a sentence and completed by himself, the nonautograph part on the Church fits exactly into the autograph part, was analyzed by Charles Auguste as the Saint’s work within ten years after his death, and contains two chapters which occur again in autograph in Part I. The two recensions of the part on the Pope only differ in order and in a few sentences, those on Scripture are both in the Saint’s hand. The nonautograph part on the Church is extremely difficult to read, being badly written in German characters and badly spelt.

With the autograph is a copy, of the same date, bound in the same way, and very possibly one of the several copies spoken of by the Marquis De Sales. The writing is like print, large and clear, except in the last part, containing the second recension on the Pope and half the section on the Church, which are written in a cramped hand and being copied from the difficult German character that are full of misspellings and grammatical errors. The copy contains 207 sheets, numbered only on one side, forming 414 pages. It is not quite complete, omitting the chief part of the article on Scripture, the first half of that on the Church and the whole of tradition. Except that it is not complete this copy is an exact transcript of the original, with which it has been most carefully collated. Our version has been made from this copy, graciously lent to us by Prince Chigi. The translator’s brother has transcribed for him the omitted parts.

This Roman MS is our chief but not our only source. There is also an autograph portion of the work at Annecy, certified by the Vicar General of the diocese, Poncet, in an attestation given June 11th, 1875, and by the Mother Superior, exactly fitting in to the other MS It contains some further most important portions on the Pope and on the Church and almost all we have on Councils. This autograph has been printed for private circulation in the Processus, of which we have procured a certified copy.

Our first duty was to arrange the Treatise in its proper order. Here the autograph and the copy were different from each other and from the printed text. The parts misplaced had to be brought back and the whole distributed according to the logical plan laid down by the saintly author in the introduction to Part II. The Annecy autograph had to be rightly joined with the Roman. Then came the question of omitting repetitions, namely, the parts on scandal, on Scripture and on the Pope. Then had to be studied the many single sentences and words about which any difficulty arose. Such difficulties were not frequent concerning the autograph part, but in the nonautograph part they frequently occurred. The original was hard to make out, the copy was not of great assistance here, the printed text was all wrong. Sometimes the consideration of one word would occupy an hour or more in Rome or in England. But success was at last obtained, except in the three instances mentioned in the notes,^[n0004] and scarcely amounting to two lines in all. The quotations had to be carefully verified and the true references given: the original was found to be correct in almost every instance. In fine, titles had to be placed to the three parts and to such articles and chapters as had not received their headings from the Saint. We will now indicate the points which we consider to deserve special notice.

(1) The General Introduction will be seen to be made up, in the French text, of two parts. The ending of the first appears in the middle of the united parts. As the same words form the end of the whole Introduction (p. 10), we have omitted them on p. 4.^[n0005] There is a second copy of that part of the Introduction which treats of scandal, carefully corrected by the Saint. We give it at the end of our Preface.

(2) The Discours, which is called the first in the French being repeated in the second and third, we have omitted it, greatly clearing the text. The Saint gives no guide to the divisions here; we have therefore made our own divisions and titles of the first four chapters.

(3) The Introduction to Part II has a second treatment in another part of the MS, but there is no practical difference between the two. This Introduction is important as regulating the number of parts and the order of articles and chapters. Three parts,^[n0006] and three parts only, are mentioned, and this division is confirmed in the Introduction to the next and last part. The eight articles of Part II are clearly indicated on p. 86.

(4) Of the first part of Article I, on Holy Scripture, we have two very similar recensions. The first editor, who has been followed in subsequent French editions, adopted the plan of giving first the four chapters of the one, afterward the four chapters of the other, with the effect of burdening his text and confusing his readers. We have united the chapters which have the same titles, our table of contents showing the way in which the chapters have been blended. We have made an exception as to c. 7 (the matter of which is given again in cc. 5, 8), because the arguments are put differently and from a different point of view. In c. 5 the Saint gives the heretical violation of Scripture as a consequence of their belief in private inspiration, in the others he gives them absolutely. In this part, particularly at the end of Discours xxxiii, the MS gives many slight directions for locating the different points treated. Similar indications appear here and there throughout, and we need scarcely say that the Saint’s intentions have been religiously observed by us.

(5) In cc. 9, 11 of Article I we have quotations from Montaigne. The fact of quoting him was made an objection against conferring the doctorate, on the ground that Montaigne was not only a profane but also an irreligious and immoral writer. The objection is sufficiently answered by Alibrandi’s reference to the practice of S. Paul and the fathers, but there is a much fuller defense than that, both of the Saint and of Montaigne. It is enough here to say that these passages are taken from the grand and most religious essay “On Prayer,” near the beginning of which Montaigne speaks of what he calls his fantaisies informes et irresolues: “And I submit them to the judgment of those whose it is to regulate not only my actions and my writings but my thoughts likewise. Equally well taken by me will be their condemnation or their approbation, and I hold as impious and absurd anything which by ignorance or inadvertence may be found contained in this rhapsody contrary to the holy decisions and commands of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church, in which I die and in which I was born. Wherefore, ever submitting myself to the authority of their censure, &c.”

(6) Immediately after Scripture and tradition we place the article on the Church. The French editions have here put that on the Pope, probably on account, originally, of a marginal note in the MS at the beginning of that section: “this chapter to be put first for this part.” The same note it probably was which led them to make this article the commencement of a Part III. It ought to have been clear that the Saint used the word part not for a division of his work but in the sense of subject.

We have said that nothing can be more incorrect and confusing than the order of the French printed texts in Article III. The first four pages are right, though under a wrong title, but on p. 153 we come to a broken sentence:^[n0007] “every proposition which stands this test …” Léonard quickly finished it off with “is good” and then goes off in the same Discours to the subject of Councils. We have been fortunate enough to find the continuation of the sentence and chapter in the Annecy autograph, which we now begin to use for the first time. “… I accept as most faithful and sound.” It is not necessary to make further mention of the errors of the French editions down to our Chapter IV. Our Chapter II begins with another section from the Annecy MS. We have brought back the chapter On the Unity of the Church in Headship to its proper place here (c. 3) and relegated the parts on fathers, Councils and the Pope to their proper places elsewhere. With regard to the exquisite passage on the analogy between the Creed and the Blessed Sacrament, whilst it certainly does not come between the fathers and the Church where Léonard has thrust it (Discours XLVI), we cannot be certain that it belongs strictly to Article VIII (c. 2), where we have placed it, though it treats of the same subject. It exactly occupies sheet 31 of the Roman autograph, and we are inclined to think that it was a sheet sent round separately. It may have been an abstract of his little printed work, Considerations on the Creed, and perhaps may have helped to produce the good effect referred to in a letter to Favre (5), written about the time when it would be going about: “The ministers have confessed that we drew good conclusions from the Holy Scriptures about the mystery of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar.”

(7) Our text now runs on in substantial agreement with the French until the end of the article on the Church, except that we have transferred part of the section on miracles to its proper place as Article VII and omitted from cc. 13, 14 what is already given in Part I.

The verbal corrections, however, required in this article are very numerous. After c. 3 the MS ceases for a time to be autograph, and the German character has puzzled our copyist and much more the French editor. Some examples may be of interest.

“Si fecond” becomes “et tailleurs” in the copy; Léonard removing the difficulty by substituting a safe but irrelevant text. “Frederick Staphyl” is in the copy “Sedenegue Stapsit,” afterward “Seneque Staphul” or “Staphu,” Blaise supplying the note “unknown work of an unknown author.” Vivès gives “Tilmann, Heshisme et Oraste;” he also has “Vallenger” for “Bullinger” and “Tesanzaüs” for “Jehan Hus”; both editors have “Tanzuelins” instead of “Zuingliens.” There is some excuse for the word “vermeriques,” which we have translated “fanatic” (p. 174); it turns out to be “suermericos,” a favorite word with Cochlæus, probably from schwärmer. “Diego of Alcala” becomes “Diogenes of Archada,” “Judas” is put for “Donatus”; “Heshushius,” “Zosime,” or “Zuingle” for “Ochin.” “Treves,” “patriarche,” and “ou moyne” become, respectively, “Thebes,” “paterneche,” and “à moins.” “Cochin” is turned into “Virne.”^[n0008] “Chidabbe” escapes perversion because it is in autograph elsewhere, but Blaise, forgetting that the African S. Augustine is speaking, sagely informs us that “this mountain is in the environs of Thonon.” The note on p. 191 represents a not unimportant restoration of the text. The copy had sapines, the printed text besoins; the context easily guided one to the right word, psaulmes.

In Article IV we return to the Saint’s own clear hand in the MS and so to greater verbal correctness. Most of this invaluable section is supplied by the Annecy MS.

(8) Article VI, on the Pope, has been fairly well edited from the Roman MS. We are able to supply from the Annecy autograph a large and most important addition on the qualities of an ex cathe drâ judgment (pp. 299–311), of which we give the original French text in an appendix.

Of this article we find two recensions in the Roman text, one in autograph and the other, which lacks the first two chapters, not. The autograph is much superior on the whole, but the order of the other recension is better, and in this we have followed it. From it also we have introduced into our translation the important passage (pp. 276–7): “And if the wills, &c.” to end of paragraph. On the same page occurs the pregnant statement that the headship of Peter is the form of Apostolic unity, that is, that the Apostles formed one body precisely by virtue of their union with Peter. This word forme was correctly printed in Blaise’s edition of this part in 1833, but Vivès and Migne have altered it into fermeté. We have paid particular attention to the important list of Papal titles (pp. 291–2). Blaise had certainly a right to complain of the mistakes in the references here, but they are the fault of the first editor, not of the author, and on careful examination we find that of the 53 titles all are correct except perhaps two; of which one cannot be traced, another attributes to Anacletus, a letter which belongs to Siricius. Almost the same list is given in the first chapter of the Fabrian code, Article V.^[n0009]

(9) Article VII, on miracles, now put in its proper place, needs no special remark, except as to the note on p. 312. The sentence of Montaigne’s referred to is probably the following, from the 22nd essay “On Custom”: “Miracles are miracles to our ignorance of nature, but not according to the actual powers of nature.” Montaigne of course is speaking as the Saint is, of apparent miracles. We have a beautiful expression of Montaigne’s faith in real miracles, for instance, such as those related by S. Augustine (de Civ. Dei xxii) in Essay 26:

“Of what shall we accuse him (S. Augustine) and the two holy Bishops, Aurelius and Maximinus, whom he calls to be witnesses with him? Of ignorance, simplicity, facility of belief, or of malice and imposture? Is there any man in our age impudent enough to think himself comparable to them, whether in virtue and piety or in learning, judgment, and competence? Giving no reason they would conquer one by their very authority.^[n0010] To despise what we cannot comprehend is a dangerous boldness and serious risk, to say nothing of the absurd rashness which it brings in its train. For after you have established, according to your fine understanding, the limits of truth and falsehood, and it turns out that you are forced to believe things which are still more extraordinary than those you deny, you are already obliged to give them up.”

(10) The early sentences of Article VIII will be seen to be a little unconnected. The first paragraph consists of detached notes from various parts of the MS. In c. 3 we have inserted the part on the analogy of faith, as in what seemed to be the most suitable place.

We have now said what we think necessary as to the substance of this work and as to our editing. As to its manner we only repeat that to many this volume will be a new revelation of the Saint. The same calm sanctity, the same heavenly wisdom, the same charisma of sweetness pervade all his works, but as a controversialist, as a champion of the Church, he here puts on that martial bearing, takes up those mighty weapons, proper to inspire confidence into his comrades and to make his enemies quail before him.

It is remarkable that after a sleep of ten generations the Saint should appear first to preach again his true words in a country so similar to that for which they were first preached and providentially written. And though the heresy is more inveterate, it is the more excusable, and he comes, as he did not come to the Chablais, first recommended by his moral and devotional teaching. It is providential, too, that he should wait so long, that he should slumber during the fierce Gallican and Jansenist struggles of the 17th and 18th centuries, that his words on these controverted matters should up to now be so doubtful that neither friend nor foe could safely dare to quote them. He appears like an ancient record, or rather like an ancient Prophet, to witness to the plain and simple belief of the Church in the days before these storms arose, to prove to us that the Church’s exclusive right to teach, the necessity of having mission from her, the evilness of heresy, the supremacy and infallibility of the Pope are not inventions, not doctrines of today or yesterday, but the perpetual and necessary truths of Catholic faith. And this is the particular excellence of S. Francis: he defends the Church from accusations of falseness, but indirectly he still more fully clears her doctrines of the charge of novelty.^[n0011] It might well be thought that the controversy of the sixteenth century would be somewhat out of date now. But this is not true of the present work, not only on account of the intrinsic efficacy of its argument and language, not only on account of the sort of prophetic insight by which he reaches in advance of his time and answers objections that had scarcely yet arisen, but also chiefly because there lies behind the strength of his reasons the weight of his authority as a witness, as a doctor, we had almost said, in these days of rapid movement, as a father of the Church. And there is no doctor who better represents the true Catholic supernatural spirit, far removed from rationalism on the one hand, from superstition and fanaticism on the other. Instead of being an extremist, as Gallicans would nickname true believers, he was accused, in his own time, of lessening the fullness of Catholic doctrine. He says (p. 2), “It will be seen that I deny a thousand impieties attributed to Catholics: this is not in order to escape from the difficulty, as some have said, but to follow the holy intention of the Church.” He preaches the full but simple Catholic truth, and his teaching was at last accepted as such by the 72,000 heretics of the Chablais. They had rejected Catholic doctrine when misunderstood, but when they understood what it was they hesitated indeed, from worldly motives, as to accepting it at all, but then they took it with simplicity as a whole, making no hesitation as to a part, or on the ground of inconsistency of part with part. Modern heretics would make such a distinction, there are even within the Church those who try to do so. For such we add, by way of conclusion to our Preface and of introduction to the Saint’s argument, the testimony of an unsuspected witness of his own age:

“What seems to me,” says Montaigne, in the essay we last quoted, “to bring so much disorder into our consciences in these troubles which we are in as to religious matters is this dispensation which Catholics make in their belief. They fancy they act as moderate and enlightened men when they grant their adversaries some article which is in debate. But besides that they do not see what an advantage it is to the man who attacks you to begin to yield to him, and to draw back yourself, and how this encourages him to pursue his advantage,—those articles which they choose as the lightest are sometimes very important. We must entirely submit to the authority of our ecclesiastical tribunal or entirely dispense ourselves from it; it is not for us to determine the amount of obedience we owe to it. Besides,—and I can say it as having tried it, because I formerly used this liberty of choosing for myself and of personal selection, holding in light esteem certain points of observance belonging to our Church, which appear on the face of them somewhat idle or strange;—when I came to discuss them with learned men I have found that these things have a strong and very solid base, and that it is only folly and ignorance which make us receive them with less reverence than the rest.”^[n0012]

WEOBLEY.

Feast of S. Francis de Sales, 29th January 1886.